Category Archives: Fiction

I have some stuff I have/can/have to bring back, thanks to the way things shook out. Long story, one I’m saving for later, but anyways-

Because there’s a music element tied to this, my first thought was to look at traditional release dates for when music would drop, which used to be Tuesdays. Then it became Fridays as of about 2010, when things became a bit more organized.

It could be all the antibiotics I’ve been taking this week talking, but I want to revisit some of my old plague fiction.

If I were a bit more subject to assigning purpose to an event’s timing, I’d say my bronchial misadventures this week were Nature’s way of asking me to look outside my normal wheelhouse. All the coughing, the two-hour-a-night sleeping sessions with nothing to show from those overnight experiences except for a large plastic grocery bag fulled with mucus-encrusted tissues, the multiple visits to the doctors before I was prescribed something where drink plenty of fluids should not mean rum-and-cokes (or in my case rum-and-diet colas, or “R&Ds”) once I started on those, all the time in the world before me but unable to do any writing because of the hacking wheezes every few minutes…

Stuff like that can color your perspective.

Once upon a time, I wrote a few pieces to share in a writer’s group I was in; the first comment I got was, “Congrats on re-writing The Stand.” Not sure if he was kidding, thought it was a compliment, or why he chose that comparison over Camus’ The Plague, but any event, the comment stuck. And I suppose other than pirates, sickness has been been a go-to point I’ve had for a lot of my stuff.

In fact, I did between fits of blowing my nose think about something that manages to combine the two, along with a few other elements. It’s not high on the list right now, it’s very preliminary, but it’s something that may get a little more attention when I hit a few walls and want a break on some stuff.

Right now, it’s good to be able to say that I tried to write something and got this produced. For the first time in a week, I got to run my fingers over the keys, without having to then interrupt myself to get a Kleenex to wipe up the snot that I just spewed all over the screen. Keep this up, I may be able to call myself productive in ways that don’t involve bodily fluids…

Now, where’s those pills marked with letters that scream DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL…?

So while there, I sung the praises of the first Universal Dracula, bothversions, knowing full well that that just ain’t gonna cover it all.

Truth is, I like a lot of horror films.

I happen more so to like the genre as a whole.

Why? It’s not so much the conventions of the form that keep me coming back. There are certain things you need to make a horror film, and once you have seen enough of them you start noting the seams the way a tailor judges a suit:

Victims: check; division between the ones going to make it to the end versus the expendables, set. Threat: good, that’s in place. Category, we, got that; and setting, yeah, let’s go back and look… Ooo-kay, this should work…

And it’s easy to get jaded about what you could find in the genre. There can seem to be a lot of bloat in the field, much like you find in SF, and can easily find in mysteries, Westerns, Rom Coms…

So what’s the draw? How about the fact that we can use horror to approach a subject at an angle that we either can’t yet or never could look at head-on?

Had there been more room to go on, the article could have brought up how Dracula was the perfect embodiment of our fears of the other, especially an other that represented the rich as the Depression deepened. We couldn’t root for bankers to be killed on screen, but this foreigner buying ruins just next door, well… Likewise, out of the main source, Stoker couldn’t discuss feminine self-determination or the rise of foreign challenges to the Empire without the Count to wrap his cape over the points.

With more room, attention could be given to the Frankenstein monster, our fear of science getting out of hand, realized with pieces of corpses butchered so soon after the carnage of the First World War cost millions their limbs. Whale’s version of Shelly’s tale shared many of the same concerns, especially the dangers of not keep track of your soul as you pursue ultimate knowledge.

Going on, there would have been discussions of vampires in general being the evil we invite to come for us, whether we’re weak or just easily flattered. The lycanthrope, and whether that werewolf we could become is as easily kept at bay as we imagine, or if the line between human and beast is not that strong after all. The kaiju rising up to destroy our cities, making us pay for our nuclear proliferation and environmental mismanagement. And if the big monster doesn’t come after us because we can’t clean up the environment, there’s that zombie horde over the hill. And maybe our inability to connect with each other in a meaningful manner, our lack of humanity, makes us deserve the slasher in a mask with a chainsaw waiting for us.

Even the Hostel films offer their observations; when we see college kids being slaughtered by the highest bidder, we get to confront our xenophobia and feelings about rendition as part of the War on Terror getting together like two drunk guests at a Halloween party getting locked in the closet, getting it on hot and heavy. And the Purge series gives us a chance to imagine economic inequity taken to levels Fritz Lang only hinted at in Metropolis.

In the end, we scare ourselves, or allow ourselves to be scared, because that’s actually a more comforting place to deal with the deeper flaws of our existence than reality allows. We need to be in fear because we otherwise might never allow ourselves to be aware of what’s wrong.

And unfortunately, we put down the book, leave the theater, shut off the TV/iPad, and allow ourselves to leave the state of awareness we’re in, and instead of doing something to address what scared us, let it build up again. Maybe it resolves itself, or it resolves us; more often than not we just adjust and await the next threat to metastasize, let it become enough of a worry to take the form of a monster in the next horror.

And it’s that, the ability to just shut it off after we finish looking at and poking what it is that scares us; that’s the part that actually scares me…

So my reaction to this reality is to be stubborn ol’ SOB and face it, which makes me what? A survivor? A decent person? Someone who loves getting the crap beaten out of him? All of the above, or some mix-n-match thereby?

And is radio silence the best option? Even before having someone better known than you fall to the forces you deal with a lot-

So even before the whole death of Robin Williams made many of us ask each other if we’re really all right, some of us doing a better job of looking at ourselves than others, there was plenty to make us keep our tongues. Right before this unpleasantness, there was the raging battle between two desperate forces wishing the other side would just submit and do what they wanted, and f’em if they wanted a say in their fate.

But ANYways: As someone who published with Kindle Direct, I was asked directly by Amazon to send off a nasty email to Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch, probably to offset the emails Authors United asked the fans of the 900 scribes who signed on were asking their fans to send to Jeff Bezos.

Metrics war, anyone? Another contest to be decided by measuring in inches…?

And get your minds out of the gutters; I was thinking football at that moment…

So how am I supposed to react to Amazon asking me to do something kinda creepy (and misreading George Orwell in the process) against a brick-and-mortar publisher that have damned little sympathy for in the first place?

Picture this: You’re a kid, between the age of seven and ten, who comes home one day after school. Mom and Dad are showing signs of a nasty, horrible fight, scars on their faces, every f’n’ possession in the house broken/scarred in some way. They come before you in unison, saying that the house is going to be abandoned that night, that everything I knew was now no longer possible, and I have to choose which parent I’m going to leave this place with forever, abandoning my home while casting my fate with only one parent.

And when I ask them what’s waiting for me in the future, they reply in unison, “You have to trust us.”

Yeah, that’s comforting…

Which brings me back to what prompted this mea lameo culpa as to why I haven’t written anything for you to ignore: IRL. The acronym that damns me as I question it: Must this reality be what defines me? Did I somehow get the blue pill by mistake?

If the R in the acronym, “real,” is the main issue, maybe it’s a matter of finding a new reality for those hateful three letters:

IRL = It’s Really Lousy

Which is too damn close to the original sensation, so…

IRL = I’m Rather Lazy

Which might be a good summation as to why we have radio silence, except it doesn’t feel like I’ve done nothing; it only looks like I haven’t, which brings us back to hidden weights and traumas noted above, so…

IRL = Ich Reche Leben

I revenge life; I stand for the living and will f’ you up badly if you stand against living. And I mean living at all levels, unlike some folk who think a fetus has rights over everyone until they are born, at which point the kid’s screwed on this side of the womb.

And if I go that route, I show that my German is still sheisse despite my best half-efforts…

IRL = In Reginae Labia

Which is Latin for queens with large lips; not as controversial as some topics, but maybe waaaay too personal, so…

IRL = Im Lag Righin

Which means in Gaelic, “stiff weak butter,” because f’ all else if that’s what we have to worry about now…

It also means that yes, the Gaelic studies have started, so that means for those I’ve shared some Deep Dark Matters with that that project is being a’born; and if you want to know what all that entails, I have to find some less humblebrag-prone version of Paetron to build a cult around to disseminate the details through…

(And trust me, there are a few Paetron support efforts out there that come damn close to resembling cults for the Lovecraftian gods, which of course means another damn hotlink…)

It’s been a little while, I admit. A large part of that is because of the work on a new large piece that’s going to go up in the fall, for which I’m doing a lot of world building. It takes up a lot of time, as I’m putting this a good deal of the way into the future and needed to go into creating a lot of details that aren’t readily accessible in historical accounts or projectable a few years out.

I did have to take some time with the last work to build a likely scenario as to what the world might be like as climate change came to the fore. I had to consider what might happen in a time that had the chance of not taking place until I was long gone from the Earth’s surface.

Though as of today, I have the means of fact checking the new climate a lot more easily than I imagined…

As of today, as you might have heard from a few news sources, like say here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, we are officially into a changed climate according to the National Climate Assessment. The graphic from above comes from the report, where you can also find much more detailed assessments on a sector-by-sector and region-by-region breakdown as to how we are breaking down.

Which is a little scary in that there’s every chance that what got covered in that piece will be validated by the National Climate Assessment, which is not something I think I can smile about, really…

I mean, what if what’s going on is more than just disciplined assessment skills and mad-crazy projection affinity? What if there’s something else going on like… something supernatural…?
So for the new piece, I may have to imagine Free Ice Cream Days, unlimited WiFi worldwide, and judgement-free hook-ups going down like something out of Logan’s Run that we can all enjoy.

Yeah, gotta make it up to everyone for messin’ up the world the last time…

They have up for bid such premiums as tow tickets to THE COLBERT REPORT, tickets to Yankees’ Old Timer Day, a tour of the Apollo Theater, a SCUBA diving course, and two hours of live flute and violin for your next party.

And, as well, a chance to name a character in my upcoming novella:

Bids are accepted here, and the funds will go to a good cause, no matter what you bid on. Even if you pass on the chance to be part of the work, don’t pass on this auction!

I mentioned before that I’m working on a new piece to go online, and I did throw in that I was giving readers the chance to name a character.

And here’s your chance, in return for you support of a good cause: the PTA at the High School of American Studies at Lehman College (the school where, full disclosure, my son is a student) is currently holding their fundraising auction for the year. The online portion of the auction is open to the general public. The money being raisedgoes to supporting the school and the students with both academic and extracurricular activities. Wherever the New York City Board of Education comes up short, it’s the PTA’s task to keep things going, something lots of parents with kids in schools all over can relate to.

This year, a number of items have been donated that are well worth bidding on. Tickets to sporting events, tickets to concerts and shows, profssionals who have volunteered their valuable time and services, all offered on behalf of supporting the school.

And, amid all these fine products are naming rights to a character in Log of the Ceres:

Naming Rights to a Character in an Upcoming Work of Fiction

Item Number 46

Item Description

Winner will have the right to provide a name (their own, or the name of an immediate family member) for a character in an upcoming work of fiction that will go live online in 2014. Said character will have a substantial role in the upcoming online novella by James Ryan, The Log of the Ceres (tentative title), author of Raging Gail and Red Jenny And The Pirates Of Buffalo, equivalent to an extended walk-on role in an NYU Film School student project. Character will not be depicted in a degrading manner and behave classily, which may sound boring but assures that this person will live to see the end of the work.

Bidding for this is currently open (along with plenty of other items), and will be online through March 30th. Even if being part of the novella is not your thing, there are plenty of other items there that are worth going for, and all your purchases will help support the school and the kids.